


Like the Sea

by KatjaLillian



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 13:13:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18700321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatjaLillian/pseuds/KatjaLillian
Summary: Lady Kailasa Merrin has been on a tour of Westeros since her mother died. Her father is intent on getting her married sooner over later. After many failed attempts, her father looks to the North to tame his willful daughter.





	Like the Sea

"Father, must I continue this?" A girl of seventeen asked. "I haven't been home at all in the last year." The girl did not look much like her father. Everyone told her that she had her grandmother's look. A Valaryian look. Silver blonde hair and light skin. She missed the purple eyes, though, and otherwise her features were like her mother. Kailasa knew she looked like her mother, Katherine Lannister, not of the head of the Lannister house, but the sister of the late Joanna Lannister.

"It is about time that you are married, Kailasa." Her father, Lord Malcolm Merrin told her. His hair used to be red, but now it had faded to grey, and receded far to the back of his head. He wasn't a very beautiful man, and the only resemblance he has to his daughter was from his eyes, his clear blue eyes.

The girl looked down at the reigns she held in her hands as she sat in the saddle of her white horse. She knew the real reason was because she looked like her late mother. In the last year she had not been allowed to stay home for more than three days during her "tour" of Westeros. Some of her just hoped that her father would just send her to Dorne to live with her brother and his wife, Meara, a princess of Dorne. They were where she wanted to be. She wanted to see her nephews, and meet the niece that would be born any day now. She loved Dorne in the one time she visited. They had fountains as big as ponds, and the best food and wine she had ever tasted. Everyone there was sweet and kind to her. They taught her so much.

But the Coast did as well. Where sailing was the most prominent form of travel and trade, it was impossible not to learn how to sail a ship.

"Kai, you can't pretend to be a girl forever, you have been a woman for many years now." Lord Merrin told her, his hand resting on her knee.

"Where am I going now?" She asked, not looking at him and being careful to keep emotions out of her voice.

"North, to Winterfell." He told her.

"You want to upset the Starks by having me reject their heir?" Kailasa asked. "Do you realize that that is the reason you haven't sent me to King's Landing to see Joffery yet?"

"How do you know you will reject him?" Lord Merrin asked. "I have heard he is a handsome boy."

"So was the lord in the Stormlands, the Riverlands, the Reach, the-"

"I get it." Her father cut her off. "But connecting our houses would be good for both of us. Just try, Kai. I promised you a true marriage, and that you shall have. You even have a home here if you can convince your husband to come south."

"Are you so sure that they will want me or I them?" Kailasa asked.

"There are three potentially eligable men in that castle, Kailasa. The odds are in your favor." He told her.

"And they are?"

"Robb Stark, Theon Greyjoy, and Jon Snow."

"You'd be fine with me marrying a bastard or an Iron Islander?" Kailasa asked.

"I'd prefer you make that choice." Lord Merrin told her. "But I don't really like the Iron Islanders too much. The Dornishmen have convinced me with their beliefs about bastards, just as they have with you. If you wish to marry any of them, you may have Silversheet, taking care of both Goldenbirth and Silversheet has been such a hardship on me." He smiled sadly.

"Fine, I will go without fighting you." Kailasa said.

"You will take Captain Jones' ship to the North and ride from there."

"Can't wait." Kailasa sighed. "I will make sure a raven is sent when I get there."

"I love you, dearest daughter."

"As I love you." And she did, but she knew her father didn't love her enough to stay.

XXX

"Lady Kailasa of house Merrin will be staying with us." Lord Stark announced to his family at sup one night. "I have just received a raven from her father."

"Is this your doing or Lord Merrin's?" Lady Stark asked. She had heard her husband mention the family often, but not much about the only daughter of said family.

"I sent word after I heard of her tour through Westeros." He stated. "I guess we were always on the list since I got such a quick reply. Her father knows there are three eligible men here for her."

"Three?" Lady Stark asked.

"Robb, Theon, and Jon." Lord Stark told her, noticing how Jon's eyes widened a bit as he said this. "Apparently this family does not care for status. She has lands to herself on the Coast."

"Is it true what they say about her?" Theon asked.

"It depends on what you have heard." Lord Stark stated. "I have never met her. I only know her father from the war."

"Did she captain a ship when she was fifteen?" Arya asked. Kailasa had been somewhat of a legend throughout Westeros in the last couple years. If it was her beauty or if it was her actions that caused her to become a myth was unknown.

"You will see for yourself soon enough." Lord Stark told his youngest daughter before turning to the three boys. "I will warn all of you that she has rejected every lord that has asked for her hand before. Her father promised her a true marriage, and he warned me that she will not have anything less. I thought I would pass this on to you.'

"Get her to fall in love with me." Theon cracked his knuckles. "That shouldn't be a challenge."

XXX

Kailasa sat on the bow of the ship, a rope tied around her waist in case she fell off she would be able to easily brought back onboard. Captain Jones knew that she wouldn't fall off. He had known her since before he became a captain. He even served as her boatswain for the journey they made the year before on this very ship.

But it was a beautiful day so far. Her silver blonde hair was tired back into braids that were spun into a wheel on the back of her head. She did it herself, she had to. She had no maids when she was on her journey to get the medicine that could have saved her mother's life. That would have saved her mother's life if they had gotten back in time.

Now, she only travelled with Elena, her handmaiden, and Rebecca, her nurse from Volantis, who was trained in many different medicines. Ser Martin, was only there to escort her from one place to the next safely, though she knew it was more for the other's than herself. She knew how to defend herself. Her brother taught her as she grew up.

"Don't look so sad." Emma said, coming up behind her. She was Captain Jones' wife, and was the nurse on the ship, though if she wanted to, Kailasa was sure she could captain it. She had golden blonde hair hand hazel eyes. She was an orphan, which was how she met her husband; they were in the same orphanage growing up.

"Why shouldn't I look sad?" Kailasa asked, turning her head to speak over her shoulder as she straddled the bow. It was a good thing she wore trousers and a shirt. The only thing that kept her femininity besides her figure was a leather corset she wore on the outside of the man's shirt she wore. "My father can't stand to be around me because I look too much like my mother."

"You don't look that much like your mother." Emma told her. "She was gold, you're silver."

Kailasa slipped back, and jumped onto the deck before Emma. "I don't want to get married to some lord. I have had too many of them grab my ass in the last year. I'm done with them staring at my breasts and I'm done with them thinking that I am desperate for a husband because my father sees the need for me to have one."

"Your father just wants you to be taken care of." Emma told her. "There are worst things out there."

"I can take care of myself." Kailasa replied. "Can he not see that?"

"He's your father. You're his daughter. His only daughter. He wants you to be taken care of, he doesn't care if you can take care of yourself. He thinks you shouldn't have to."

"Emma, I don't know if I could stand to be with someone for the rest of my life."

"That's what I thought." Emma told her. "And then I met him."

"You grew up together. It's not the same."

"It's exactly the same. Someday you will meet someone and it will hit you that you never want to part from them." Emma told her. "Just open yourself up to that."

"Love is pain, Emma." Kailasa said. "I don't want to be in pain anymore."

"Love is strength too." Emma replied. "Open yourself up to it."

"I'm not very good at opening myself up to anything." Kailasa replied, turning back towards the sea. "I am fine on my own. I always have been."

XXX

"What was the rumor you heard about the girl, Theon?" Robb asked him as they all were getting their hair cut and their beards shaved off. Lady Catelyn had demanded it. She seemed ready to have a summer wedding. Robb was sure that his mother wouldn't approve of whatever this rumor was.

Theon held his hands from his chest. "Giant tits, Robb."

Robb laughed. "Gods, I hope so. Have you seen Southern dresses? Much less than is worn here."

"I can't believe your mother is making us look pretty for this girl." Jon complained, wanting desperately to switch the subject. He wasn't going to have a chance with her anyway, so he didn't want to hear how beautiful she was. No one would want him when the next lord of Winterfell was in the running as well.

"Think about it this way, brother." Robb clapped him on the shoulder. "If you get her to fall in love with you, you become a lord."

Jon wasn't going to lie and say that he didn't always want to become a lord. But in his mind he always wanted Winterfell. Not somewhere that he had never been in a place much warmer than the North.

"But I will not win. Isn't that why your mother was so insistent that I clean up as well? I am no threat."He replied.

"We all know that I'm going to win, sorry lads, but she comes from a place on the sea. You inlanders have no chance." Theon told them.

"As soon as she falls in love with Winterfell she will fall in love with me." Robb replied. "And if she chooses me, then she can stay here."

The two boys looked at Jon.

"And what would she get if she chose you?" Theon asked.

"She would be able to get her lands in the South." Robb stated. "That's actually pretty good. You may win yet, if you can talk to her."

Jon rolled his eyes. "I have a tongue, you know. I obviously can speak."

"Yet we never see you around girls too often." Theon stated. "I wonder why."

Jon rolled his eyes again. "Shut it."

XXX

Kailasa approached Winterfell and almost gasped at the sight of it. It was a fortress. She grew up on the Coast where there were palaces, that were the color or cream or sand with red roofs near a beach with white sand and blue water. Winterfell was made of gray stone and looked like it had stood there for thousands of years. It looked dangerous. It looked like an adventure in building form.

"My lady, are you all right?" Ser Martin asked. He had dark grey hair with a matching thick beard. He had known Kailasa since she was born. He was given the task of delivering her to Winterfell safely before returning to her father. They would all leave besides Kailasa, her handmaiden and nurse. Captain Jones had the ship waiting for them.

"I am well." She told him. "Just a little surprised. I have heard of Winterfell, but I never thought it would be so..."

He grinned. "Yes. Quite the thing of storybooks, don't you think? Who knows, maybe the next time I see you, you will become the Lady of Winterfell."

Kailasa smiled though it didn't reach her eyes. "Thank you, Ser Martin. I will remember that when you drink too much wine and make bad jokes. I will be able to have you escorted to a room where you can sleep it off."

He let out a booming laugh. "I'd like to see you try, little lady!" He pressed his heels into his horse, getting him to go faster, leaving Kailasa behind. She quickly followed, truly laughing as she did.


End file.
